One of the main reasons I lasted long enough to become successful in sales and sales management, was the simple fact that throughout my career, a few people saw my potential and had the tenacity and patience to help me see it too.

I’ve quite literally filled books with the lessons they passed on, but here are just three that made a huge difference.

I need to share this with you before we go on – when I started my career in sales, I was appallingly bad, absolutely shocking. I was cocky, unreceptive, under the illusion that I could simply glide through with a smidgeon of natural talent and a touch of charm – and I shudder at the memory.

But it turns out, that’s precisely what enabled me to write my most popular books and sales training programmes for Varda Kreuz – in fact I meet ‘young me’ fairly regularly during training workshops – and I try to distil into twenty hours what a couple of incredible mentors and bosses showed me over the course of twenty years – and I’m forever grateful for the information they shared with me.

Lesson Number 1 – Deliver Value to the Business or Get out

When I was growing up, no one would ever have called my family wealthy and by the time I hit my teens I’d still never met anyone who I’d now classify as rich, and aspired for very little other than to possibly one day own my own home and drive a car.

If I had enough for the rent, an appetising fridge and enough for a few weekend beers with the boys – I was happy enough.

My first business to business sales role was a tough education – but they invested in me with training and sales tools and in return I put my suit on every day and polished my shoes.

Just earning the flat basic wage didn’t bother me, it would have been nice to receive a little more commission every month – but if it didn’t happen it wasn’t the end of the world.

I turned up for work with a smile and hoped sales would follow me in – but if they didn’t – hey, no worries.

I have to say it came as quite a bit of a shock when they fired me.

And although I don’t remember that particular sales manager as one of my favourite bosses, he changed my outlook on sales so that I’d never fall over so stupidly ever again – after that I made sure I made a difference and that the people who mattered saw the difference I was making.

Lesson Number 2 – Understand How You Help

For a good few years I walked in to see customers and sold AT them. Actually, that’s how everyone I knew sold – it’s still how most people I meet sell to this day.

Even after a week of solid, expensive, highly focused sales training with a big multi-national company – I had no concept of how I helped anyone.

We didn’t talk about it, we weren’t trained on it – no one internally saw it as a requirement or cared that it might be a better way of doing things – or produce more business.

It was a buyer called Terry Wiseman who helped me see it one Christmas.

Terry worked for a wholesaler – and told me that my generic Christmas Promotion was a bag of ****, pointless, not fit for purpose and that (correctly) it had been thought up by marketeers on the fifth floor who had never met a customer in their life.

That year I sold 5 boxes through Terry’s business.

The following Christmas I held up my hands, admitted that my ignorance towards customer buying motives and arrogant attitude wasn’t going to deliver either of us any bonus – and that’s when he opened my eyes.

He showed me why people bought my products, how they used them, what they needed them for – what flicked their switch, the quantity that they liked to purchase, the add-on purchases that could be acquired with the right bundle deal.

I sold 10,000 boxes that Christmas

Actually, it only occurred to me while writing this, that this lesson was delivered by a Wiseman at Christmas – and let me tell you, it was worth its weight in gold – Terry helped me see something I would later describe like this;

People buy drills because they want to create holes – bad salespeople present drills, great salespeople help them achieve the hole they need.

Lesson Number 3 – Make Sure You Can Go Back Again

So now my career is going through the roof – I mean flying.

Company-wide memos referencing my big wins are coming from the Managing Director’s office, I’m getting personal letters of thanks from the chairman and I’m regularly asked to host sales meetings to share my insight and techniques with the rest of the business.

I’ve had two promotions in six months and I’m being considered for another – a big one – before Easter.

And that was when my Sales Director – Craig Campbell – dropped a bombshell during my end-of-year appraisal.

“I know what you’re doing Chris – and it’s time to stop.”

“What do you mean ‘what I’m doing’? I’ll tell you what I’m doing – I’m knocking every sales target out of the park, I’m securing previously thought unwinnable contracts on a monthly basis, and I’m getting listings that no one has got anywhere near achieving in the last twenty years – that’s what I’m doing!”

The memory of his stare fills me with a chill to this day – and still makes me want to shut up immediately and leaves me feeling stupid twenty years after the event.

He put his pen on the appraisal document and slowly and precisely pointed out that my search for glory was about to fall flat on its own fat backside.

Yes – I had a knack for helping people, delivering the solution they needed and writing proposals that people actually wanted to read – and yes that had led to business going through the roof.

But that was the last time a customer ever heard from me.

Even when things went wrong or didn’t work out as well as I’d promised – I left their calls unanswered – I was too busy chasing the company-wide recognition, the next big win.

But that industry – just like every other – was too small to treat existing customers so badly.

My thinking was at least six months short of short-term thinking.

Contracts and tenders would come round again in a matter of months, new product launches would require presentations to the same groups of people, even if I moved to another business appointments would be few and far between because I’d lost their trust – and testimonials and referrals were just about to dry up and never return.

He also pointed out, that further down the line when I had my own sales team to manage, their reputation would be tainted by mine and no one would want to see them either, so that would end in failure too.

Craig shared all that with me, I nodded in embarrassment, his expression stretched into a smile – he told me that my future was bright and that I should do something about getting it back on track – and then he bought me a drink to toast my imminent success.

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Thanks for reading this blog post. On my blog, I regularly write about Sales, Sales Management and Customer Service issues, topics and trends.

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Thanks for reading this blog post. On my blog, I regularly write about Sales, Sales Management and Customer Service issues, topics and trends.

Recently I posted a question on the four most popular of LinkedIn’s Purchasing and Procurement Group’s discussion boards, which gave me the opportunity to ask almost half a million professional buyers one simple question;

“How do most sales people let themselves down?”

After working my way through the answers, it turns out there are 7 recurring issues that cause salespeople to lose the sales that they really didn’t need to.

For more information on the ISMM or how to receive Winning Edge magazine, you can find out more by following this link.

Best regards

Chris

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PS – My new book The Extremely Successful Salesman’s Club is getting rave reviews and I am humbled by the number of people who have already discovered it – thanks for all your support. If you haven’t read it yet, you can download the first four chapters for free by clicking on this link.

Marketing guru Perry Marshall tells a great story regarding the difference in thought process that led to the success of the Wright Brothers and the failure of all the others who were trying to achieve the same aim.

He explains the main reason that Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first guys to build an air-worthy vehicle, was that they focused on making the most elegant, efficient and aerodynamic plane.

What they didn’t do was focus on creating the most powerful engine.

At that time, everyone was obsessed with powerful engines. But powerful engines, especially back then, were really, really heavy.

And of course “heavy” is not a quality you want when you’re trying to defy gravity.

So, Orville and Wilbur concentrated on designing a machine that would stay in the air…ride the wind…float. They knew that once they achieved that goal, they could strap a good engine to their bird and the thing would stay up.

Meanwhile their engine-obsessed competitors were building powerful, heavy machines…and crashing back to earth.

What’s that got to do with sales training?

Well quite a lot actually.

You see, the sales model and mind-set your team work with, needs to be an aerodynamic plane…if they thoroughly understand the motivations behind peoples buying decisions, have the ability to uncover opportunities and turn those opportunities into recognisable needs and then keep moving every genuine prospect forward during each call or meeting…then by all means, you should go ahead and take it to the next level by helping your sales team to improve their overall effectiveness with some advanced sales skills and techniques.

To be extremely successful, both are crucial.

Skills and techniques that genuinely work and are useful within your industry, together with a foundation in buying motives, effective questioning, presentation skills and a real understanding of how and when to close.

A strong engine and a wind-worthy plane.

Unfortunately strapping those skills and techniques onto a team that can’t fly is just a waste of time.

When you next decide to invest in sales training for your team, ask yourself the following questions and work out whether or not you’re being sold an engine that doesn’t go anywhere, or a plane that’ll take you wherever it is you want to go – and can continuously be improved.

Put yourself in the customer’s chair – If these techniques were used on you, would you buy from the salesperson using them?

If you answered yes to the first question, following the purchase, would you feel – in any way – that you had been manipulated or bullied?

Does the training sound like a collection of techniques for selling ATsomeone or a toolbox that can be dipped into, to help your customers make great buying decisions?

Does the title involve the word advanced? If so, how much of the non-advanced training have your team already completed previously?

Also, which bit of the content allows this particular training to call itself advanced?

Is the training focused mainly on helping the salesperson sell or the prospect to recognise why they should buy?

Has this training been built to achieve the specific requirements of your team and business – or is this the same training they do for everyone?

Until next time, have a great summer

Chris

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PS – My new book The Extremely Successful Salesman’s Club is getting rave reviews and I am humbled by the number of people who have already discovered it – thanks for all your support. If you haven’t read it yet, you can download the first four chapters for free by clicking on this link.

So, this weekend, my nine year old daughter decides to set up a lemonade stand at the front of the house as her first commercial enterprise.

To be fair, she’s been nagging me to help her do it for over a year – since she saw that bank advert with a similar age girl doing the same thing.

I only realise now, that right up until the point she set up her tiny table and chair (sandwiched between her hand-drawn poster and little plastic till) – that I was acting like your typical “don’t go into business” advisor.

I recognised it, because I heard so many myself before I set up my first company.

“Are you sure you want to do this? What happens if no one comes? You might end up looking stupid? Is what you make really good enough for someone else’s money?”

But, like all good entrepreneurs and pioneers, she appears to be able to phase all that nonsense out, and crack on with what she knows to be right.

Here are a couple of things that a nine year old girl selling home-made lemonade could teach a few salespeople I’ve met along the way.

1. She sat down and worked out her USP

“So why is anybody going to be buy this, honey?”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Well, there’s a lot of competition, we live not far from the local pub and a can of fizzy drink from the shop is only 50p – why would they stop and buy yours?”

So she sat and she thought about it – then redesigned her poster to explain why it was worth stopping and giving her your money – in fact she had five reasons why her Lemonade was worth stopping for.

Question: What are the 5 reasons people buy your product or service instead of the competitions?

2. She knew why it was worth the money

So – it would have been really easy, to spend £10 on ingredients and plastic cups and then just let her play shop – but she wanted to do this properly.

We put all the costs down on paper, she realised what price we couldn’t go below and why, and we justified it with facts.

Question: When someone raises a price objection do you feel uneasy, mixed with the need to knock a little off, or can you justify the value and the cost?

3. She was ready for objections

We sat down together – and I was an awkward customer – I gave her every reason I could think of why I wouldn’t buy lemonade off the side of the road, from a 9 year old girl.

We then came up with conversation pieces that overcame drawbacks, misunderstandings and scepticism.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud.

Question: What 5 objections do you regularly get? Have you sat down and worked out how to overcome each one so they’re no longer a problem?

4. She was passionate about the work

Two days she sat out there.

She wanted to be out there, setting up her stand straight after breakfast – we had trouble getting her in for lunch or dinner.

She chatted, she poured, she went and got complimentary bowls of water for customers with dogs.

Admittedly, it seemed to come quite naturally to her – but she wasn’t daunted by anything or anyone, intelligently delegated most of the grunt work to me (concentrating on the actions that would bring in the most money) and she really, really enjoyed it.

Question: When was the last time you sprang out of bed and went looking for new customers? If those who work with you were asked, what would they say to the question – does that salesperson spend most of their time on actions that only achieve their goal?

Everything from the guy who’s in too much of a rush to let you out of that junction (would it kill you to leave a space?), to the time that you just wanted to exchange an unwanted gift at the customer service desk, or when you needed someone from another department to drop in a good word to get you that promotion.

And your customers recognise it more than anyone else.

Those prospects, the ones you called on last week – those successful business people – did you know that they spend some time, virtually every day, wishing that someone or something would just make their lives a little easier, to shine a little light down a seemingly endless tunnel, take some weight off their shoulders.

Do you know why?

Because nobody EVER does!

Those people might look brave and bold – hey, it’s part of their DNA, their personality types – but, on the whole, you’ll find that’s just a mask hiding a gritty reality.

The boss who’ll break her back trying to keep the balance of pleasing both customers and staff;

The small business owner who spends every day trying to keep a roof over his family’s heads and continue to help pay the mortgages of everyone he employees;

The CEO who wakes up at 3.00am worrying about problems that no one else in her organisation even realises exist.

And then, every single day, some schmuck walks in or rings up just to try to take some money off them.

Without fail, everyday, a sales person will desperately try and flog a $50 box that isn’t required and wasn’t asked for – and after the box is politely declined, they’ll try a sure-fire, never-fail closing technique to win them over.

And the reason it just feels like bad selling is because that’s what it is – no one ever tries to help them to make great buying decisions – just sell them stuff.

So, if you want to stand out from that majority group of sales people, you need to start understanding why people buy your stuff and then work out how it helps.

From the word go you try to help – selling should become a bi-product of helping, not the other way round – at Varda Kreuz we call it Earning the Right

Once they know you’re there to help, you’ve got to be ready to accurately diagnose the problem and present the solution in such a way that they can follow every particle of your explanation – and then you deliver the original promise – and you helpthem.

No one else is doing that – no one else wants to do that – no one else cares enough to do that.

PS – My new book The Extremely Successful Salesman’s Club is getting rave reviews and I am humbled by the number of people who have already discovered it – thanks for all your support. If you haven’t read it yet, you can download the first four chapters for free by clicking on this link.